maria renard

Koji Igarashi, the man behind the current Castlevania series, doesn’t like it when fans call his latest title a fighting game. He prefers that Castlevania Judgment be referred to as an action title.

To me, this is a matter of semantics because from the look and the feel of the game, it does play like a spawn of Street Fighter II. Is there a life bar? You bet there is. Do you attack an opponent in a one-on-one contest? Definitely.

Castlevania Judgment is so much a fighting game that you couldn’t help but notice it at the character selection screen where only four characters were available — Simon Belmont, Dracula, Alucard and Maria Renard — out of a cast of 14.

Each character has a subweapon that they pick prior to the match. They’re the traditional Castlevania fare that includes holy water and crosses. Before each map, there’s a little intro before players both start at the same time.

From what I’ve played, the world is open and the fighters are detailed. (They’re done by famed manga artist Takeshi Obata, the man partly responsible for the Blue Dragon manga.)The characters move around using the analog stick on the nunchuk. There’s a block button. They can dodge with a shake of the nunchuk.

Players attack with a quick waggle and a stronger punch is activated by holding the B button. The A button activates the item, but players need to break open parts of the destructable environment and collect hearts to use them.